I read a book a lomg time ago called Men are From Mars and Women are From Venus. Now it comes back to me because my hubby says one thing and means another thing. I've always got to guess what he really means when he says something as opposed to what he's saying. I never wanted to have to raise another child but now I find myself in that predicament. This is not the way I pictured this. I call this effect the Man Effect Has anyone got any comments on this.
..or you say, go into the kitchen for dinner (which he wants) and he carefully walks the other direction. They didn't call it Second Childhood for nothing!
Men and women do communicate differently--goes with the differences in the way we approach issues and projects, etc. However, I think what you both are commenting on are processor problems. What idea or info goes in or comes out has been altered by malfunctions in the brain. Long ago and nearly all our married life (before VaD was on the horizon), any and every time we would go through the drive thru at McD--when we got to the microphone, he'd turn to me and ask,"What do you want?" I'd answer,"Hamburger, fries, and a chocolate shake." He'd turn to the mic and say, "Cheeseburger, fries, and a strawberry shake." Same idea as when someone is told to raise their right hand...then told "the other right."
These things happen to all of us sometimes, but with our Los, just as he rational button is broken, so is the processor. It's our job to translate or counter the wrong turns the processor has generated. Ain't it fun?
Take it from someone whose profession was speech/language disorders - under NORMAL circumstances WITHOUT AD, men and women communicate completely differently. Example: Neither my friend nor I could EVER follow our husbands' directions to get somewhere. They always said - go under the highway. ?????????????? What do you mean "under the highway?" Tell me left on Name of Street or right on Name of Street or take ramp that says I-95 North, which is on the right side of the street right after Dunkin Donuts. Nope.
Another example: We come home from work upset at something a co-worker said. From our husbands, we get a laundry list of "solutions", what to do or say to "fix" the person who upset us. What we actually wanted was an "emotional" response - a hug; a "I'm so sorry you had to endure that." Women speak in emotions; men speak in solutions.
Now, throw in Alzheimer's Disease, and figuring what they mean is like trying to fit together the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Carosi is correct about the processing problems. When one hears information, it comes into the brain for organization, meaning, and sorting. That is processing. When the processing is broken - the "intake" is all mixed up, so the "output" is even more mixed up. And there is the memory problem. Often they have forgotten the beginning of what was said by the time you get to the end, so they are only processing a portion of what you said.
Communication between a man and woman when one has AD takes into consideration all of these factors, and you end up with a MESS.
The best example I have is when Sid was still driving. One day he was heading toward the gate in our complex. Just as he was to make the turn, a bunch of kids were crossing the street, and he wasn't slowing down. I started to scream - DON'T HIT THE KIDS. DON'T HIT THE KIDS. And guess what? He started to scream back at me - I HAVE THE RIGHT OF WAY. I HAVE THE RIGHT OF WAY. THEY DON'T. In the meantime, thank goodness, he stopped, but after that, we were screaming at each other. I kept yelling - Who the &^%*#@ cares WHO has the right of way??? You don't kill people. He kept yelling back at me that I didn't know the rules of the road and I was the one who shouldn't be driving. He was so mad at me, that he turned around and drove home. I left him there and took the car to town, where we had been going in the first place. When I got home later, he was still so furious, I couldn't talk to him. The next day, I explained why I was so upset, and he told me that he wasn't going to hit the kids. He had already slowed down.
I figured out that he was so worked up by what I said about not hitting the kids, that his AD brain got hold of my yelling about the kids, and once the AD devil gets hold, there's no letting go. He was not able to communicate what he was really doing and thinking, as in stopping to not hit the kids.
So Shadowbaby, that's my story, and you could not be more right.
I,m glad I brought this up, there are great responses and yes, now that AD is added to the equation, it becomes a different animal altogether. My hubby used to drive and he used to respond the same way as joang,s hubby did. Thank God he had to quit before he killed someone. I've learned so much on this site, thanks, everyone.
Joan, had to laugh at the right of way - it goes like that here too. Forget reality, he just sticks with what his rights are - or what he thinks they should be. He went through a busy intersection stop sign. I,too, was hollering stop, stop. He did stop in the middle of the intersection, cars going everywhere, blowing horns at us etc. He looked at me oblivious to what was going on around us and said "Well, you don't have to raise your voice." Since then, I still haven't figured out when it is ok to holler - so I do it when "I" need to. Go figure.......